As a kid, in the UK, back in the '70s, I was watching Roots and was wondering why they were so keen to get to Scotland. I eventually realised that this was set in the US, of course, and the north there was different.

So I suppose that was my default then but, these days, I typically find myself trying to work out exactly when and where a thing is set, if it isn’t obvious, automatically - before I actually settle into the plot or anything.

I have a selection of natural scenes - some that I have taken myself, other found on the web - that rotate each two hours around the day. Night shots at night etc.

Nope. I still have From LA to New York etched into my brain in bile and loathing from it playing on a cheap crappy clock-radio alarm I had when it was first released in '76 or whenever. Actually waking up to that song probably only happened a couple of times, but it was enough. I found that I preferred the brain-piercing built in alarm to having any other songs or drivelling DJs hypnogogically imprinting themselves.

These days I have either birdsong or Tibetan chimes instead.

I would primarily describe my view as Virtue ethics, but…

• I believe that cultivating virtues is necessary to be able to take responsibility for your choices etc: existentialism - and this is what I aim to do
• I definitely consider that prioritising the natural environment is essential - at the large and small scale
• In areas where I am aware that I am not sufficiently developed, I will adopt a deontological approach as a fallback
• I would certainly consider the promotion of equality and the development of local community as virtuous, although not to the exclusion of individual autonomy or rights - within that community or without.

On the larger scale, I seek to promote the development of individual virtues and equality within society but, acknowledging that this is always likely to be an aspiration rather than a achieved state then, again, I would look to a deontological approach as a fallback.

I am deeply suspicious of utilitarian arguments in most circumstances, simply through experience of those who tend to promote them. Both egoism and libertarianism seem short-sighted to me.

First name - ultimately biblical in origin and very common at the time of my birth: I went through my entire educational career as one of five with this name (specific people changed, but there were almost always 5 of us).

Middle name: ultimately Germanic in origin. My dad’s middle name too. It has royal connections. I basically never use it.

Last name: the name of a village 30 miles from where I was born. If you look in the village churchyards in a line between the two places, the gravestones show that they moved along about one village per generation. My branch of the family are not great travellers. But, hey, I moved to the next county, so…

Bombastic? Pretentious? Braggart?

In the grand scheme of things I don’t do ‘angry’ that much at all, but the two times when I am most likely to angry at all are commuting to work and then back again. Commuting to, because I will be fuming over the latest environment-destroying, genocidal nazi shit that has hit the news overnight and on the way back because I will be grumbling over whatever nonsense and stupidity has arrived on my desk during that day.

In both cases, I make a positive attempt to get it out of my system by the time I arrive at the end of the travel. I recall a study that concluded that a 16mins commute was optimal for that - which mine was exactly at the time.

I’m the older end of Gen X, and have never smoked. The major factor in starting is peer pressure and I didn’t have any peers around me at the critical time who did. My family didn’t either.

I seldom drink alcohol and then I have only ever enjoyed cider - not beer, wine or spirits. This is just a matter of the taste for me. I simply don’t like it.

As a kid, I had had grape juice and I had heard adults enthusing about wine as usual and I had a idea what it must taste like.

If you imagine a taste/mouthfeel spectrum with wine at one end and grape juice in the middle, what I imagined wine to taste like was pretty much at the opposite end of that spectrum to what it actually tastes like. I had one mouthful and had no desire for any more at all. I have obviously tried wine and the rest at various times since, but my opinion is basically the same.

With cider, I’ll seldom have more that a pint or two a month these days.

I was halfway through this and increasingly puzzled before I realised that you are NOT talking about the 1945 Hitchcock film.

I always heard it as trombeleese, which I imagined to be some exotic musical instrument like this:

My comment was a (half) joking one on the increase in capacity over time due to technology advance - and the bloat in software. As I recall, the early USB sticks that I had were something like 32mb - useless by todays standards. Meanwhile the increasing size of even blank .docx pages has been remarked on over the years.

In my experience, they last until you look at the capacity a few years and several changes of use down the line and end up giving to someone for some weird reason with a single MS document filling it up.

I was around 20 years too late.

They didn’t attend mine either, as it happens, on the grounds that they too were “late” by then.

I don’t know whether it is ‘the best’ but one that I find springs to mind quite often is a moment with a new Christmas present once. It was one of those walk-along-then-spin-and-shoot robots - a very simple thing, since this was in the early '70s. However, my memory is of utter joy and entrancement as I set it going then leapt out of the way, on to the furniture, before it opened its chest and fired.

It must have been a present from my parents, so they were probably happy that I liked it. Whether they were quite so happy after the first hour or two of the same thing, I don’t know.

Right handed. My wallet is in my left pocket, since anything that I need to do with it will involve holding it with my left and doing the thing with my right.

Both my phones (home and work) are in my right, since I can carry out basic functions on them one handed.

Yes. Why do you ask?

Comments like that say far more about the person saying it than about the person being described most of the time, I’d say.

I’d need to know how good the describer is like in that area before I could make any assessment about the describee.

• Worked for their local team, and was quite happy to challenge/push back on unreasonable top-down asks.
• Quite happy to admit they didn’t know stuff and asked for advice and ideas - and, of course, credited the appropriate team members for things that worked, but took responsibility themselves if things didn’t go well.
• Displayed authentic emotions and enthusiasm for the work, rather that present a bland corporate mask.

The 1983 UK general election.

However, since I lived in a Tory safe seat (taking boundary changes into account, the last time that location had been anything except tory was a Whig in the C19th) I spoiled my ballot - writing some pithy comment across it about how meaningless the process was. That showed them!

Checking now, I see that it has continued as a Tory safe seat up to the present day.

Chumbawamba’s discography - or even just this one on repeat.